Summary
The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals concerning Stoltz's conviction under Code § 18.2-374.3(C). The court rejected Stoltz's void-for-vagueness and First Amendment overbreadth challenges, holding that the statute's requirement that a defendant know or have reason to believe that the solicited person is under 15 is sufficiently definite and does not substantially burden protected speech. The court also concluded that the evidence established that Stoltz had reason to believe the individual was underage.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Code § 18.2-374.3(C), particularly its use of the phrase "knows or has reason to believe," is unconstitutionally vague under the Due Process Clause.
- Whether Code § 18.2-374.3(C) is unconstitutionally overbroad under the First Amendment.
- Whether Stoltz's facial constitutional challenge was preserved for appellate review.
Holdings
- Although the Court of Appeals found that Stoltz had abandoned his facial challenge, the Supreme Court assumed without deciding that both facial and as-applied theories were subsumed in his assignment of error because the constitutional claims failed on the merits.
- Code § 18.2-374.3(C) is not unconstitutionally vague because the phrase "knows or has reason to believe" gives ordinary people sufficient notice of the prohibited conduct and does not invite arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.
- Code § 18.2-374.3(C) is not facially overbroad because it regulates conduct—the use of a communications system to solicit a minor—and does not prohibit a substantial amount of protected speech in relation to its plainly legitimate sweep.
Key quotations
“At the moment that Stoltz obtained such reason to believe, his use of the Internet for the purpose of solicitation became a crime.” (171)
“Nothing in the statute criminalizes a substantial amount of protected speech when "judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep," Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 615, 93 S.Ct. 2908.” (171)
Factual background
A Fairfax County undercover detective posed online as a thirteen-year-old girl and responded to Stoltz's Craigslist advertisement seeking casual sex. During their electronic and telephone communications, the detective repeatedly represented that she was thirteen, home alone, and out of school, while Stoltz discussed kissing, touching, nudity, and meeting in person. Stoltz went to the agreed meeting location, and subsequent investigation linked the Craigslist advertisement to his home. The jury convicted him of computer solicitation of a minor but acquitted him of attempted indecent liberties with a child.
Procedural history
Stoltz was convicted by a jury of computer solicitation of a minor under Code § 18.2-374.3(C) and acquitted of attempted indecent liberties with a child after his first trial ended in a hung jury. The trial court denied his motion for a new trial. The Court of Appeals of Virginia rejected his constitutional challenges in an unpublished opinion, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed.